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Traffic Calming Program Stalls

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By LINDA CHION KENNEY, The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 27, 2007

TAMPA - The county's Neighborhood Traffic Calming program is putting on hold new requests for help in easing volume and velocity on major neighborhood streets.

Meanwhile, projects under way - including the Little and Pearson roads project in Valrico - could lack funding.

'What we've temporarily stopped is the Neighborhood Traffic Calming program from holding any more public hearings on projects that have not already been in the process of moving forward,' said Buzz Barbour, the county's manager of traffic programs. 'New projects are on hold until I know a little better what my budget's going to be.'

Still, Barbour said he wants communities to sign up for the program so he can better present the need for traffic calming measures countywide, such as raised roadways, speed humps, narrowed streets, tighter intersections and landscaped medians.

With 60 projects in the works and an annual $800,000 budget, Barbour said he is concerned that the need for traffic calming measures outstretches his program's resources.

'The good news is the Little and Pearson roads project has started the process,' Barbour said. 'The bad news is I can't prognosticate what the budget impacts are going to be.'

The first of two hearings for the Little and Pearson roads project was held June 19.

Barbour said that in 'an absolute best-world, best-case scenario, it would take nine months to see traffic calming devices installed. But I think it would be more like a year or 18 months.'

Costs for a typical project range from $60,000 to $75,000, which includes hearing costs and professional engineering design plans but not installation, Barbour said.

In addition, Barbour said, construction costs have escalated.

Reporter Linda Chion Kenney can be reached at (813) 653-3845 or lchion@tampatrib.com.

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